Article on 'fairy bread' incurs the wrath of an angry nation
If you're going to pen a culinary guide to something, you should probably make sure you don't incur the wrath of an entire nation.
U.S. food magazine Epicurious recently wrote about the colourful Australian staple of kids birthday parties: Fairy bread.
Presumably, the piece was meant to food-splain fairy bread to the overseas masses, but it was interpreted by Australians back home, as a hipster-esque food fetishisation that got it all wrong.
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For the unacquainted, fairy bread consists of cheap white bread, margarine (imitation butter) and a layer of rainbow sprinkles.
Despite what Epicurious says, no self-respecting Australian has ever made 'fairy toast.' Fairy bread exists to be eaten solely at kid's parties, not "at breakfast, as a snack in-between meals, or after dinner to finish off the meal," as the magazine claims. That would be madness.
Some Australian may have also taken issue with the descriptor "sparkly." If your fairy bread has sparkle you have committed a culinary crime. If you want shiny food, go eat a gold leaf cake or gold-sprinkled mousse, you spectacular bourgeois food criminal.
Judging from the Aussie reaction, if you are trying to make fairy bread fancy you have missed the point. It is supposed to be cheap. It's the food of the common people.
And the people have spoken.
